


Counting Scars

by amirosebooks



Category: Cut & Run - Madeleine Urban & Abigail Roux
Genre: Flashbacks, M/M, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-28
Updated: 2014-01-28
Packaged: 2018-01-10 09:59:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1158270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amirosebooks/pseuds/amirosebooks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I picked up where <a href="http://tristinawright.tumblr.com/post/67508878121/malady579-amirosebooks-tristinawright">Tristina left off</a> after Kelly woke Nick up by counting his freckles. I only meant to write a few more lines, but, of course, the words got away from me. Here we have Nick waking up from a nightmare and Kelly comforting him. Ends happy...ish.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Counting Scars

It was Easter Sunday and Nick was running for his life with Kelly at his side. Dodging tombs and bullets and blinking against the sting in his eyes from Liam's smoke bombs. 

The shot rang out. 

The same shot that had haunted him during hundreds of nightmare filled nights since that Sunday in New Orleans. 

Kelly's weight crashed against his back, taking them both to the ground. 

Nick struggled to his feet as Owen and Digger rushed to their aid. His feet slipped on the blood as he ran behind them. There was always so much more blood in his nightmares than there'd been on that day. 

He fell to his knees on the grass where they'd laid Kelly down. Nick’s hands shook as he   reached out to find Kelly’s wound. 

“Doc?” Nick’s voice shook.

The world around them turned gray and foggy. Owen and Digger disappeared into the mist. The crackle of voices, gunshots, and screaming coming from the comm in his ear and the street around them faded to an overwhelming hum. The hum that came with tunnel vision and blood rushing in your ears as you begged the person bleeding out in front of you to just hold the fuck on.

Blood was everywhere. It soaked into the grass around Kelly’s body. The knees of his pants were damp from it. His hands were covered in it. Sticky and warm, the metallic smell of it clawed at his throat. Tears streamed down his cheeks as his eyes searched Kelly’s chest, following his fingers as they felt around. He couldn’t find the fucking wound. 

Kelly’s mouth fell open, blood trickled out one side. His eyes were wide, pupils blown making his changeable blue-green eyes look black. They darted back and forth. His brow furrowed slightly as his mouth opened and closed. 

“Kels, please hold on,” Nick pleaded. “We’ll get you help. Just stay with me.”

Kelly’s eyes found his. Nick could read the unspoken questions in his gaze. The “What the hell happened?” and the “Will I be okay?” 

In the small part of Nick’s mind that was aware he was in the midst of a nightmare, he knew Kelly had lived. And flourished. And that they’d turned years of friendship and camaraderie into romantic love. 

But there was a larger portion of Nick’s mind that was absorbed in the nightmare. Terrified by the gray mist surrounding them. Horrified at the blood that poured out of Kelly’s body. More blood than any one body contained and it never came from a wound that Nick could find and try to cover. That was the part of him that would scream himself hoarse as he called out for someone, anyone, to help them. To help Kelly. To save his life.

That was the part of him that felt his world shatter into hundreds of tiny, jagged little pieces when Kelly’s questioning gaze went distant and the light in his eyes faded. 

Night after night. 

Nightmare after nightmare. 

No matter how many hours Nick spent reassuring himself before he finally succumbed to sleep that the man he loved had lived, the nightmare almost always came for him. And every time it did he had to watch Kelly die in his arms over and over.

 

* * *

 

Shouting tore through Kelly’s dream, waking him just before the body he’d been curled against sat up abruptly. Kelly rolled from the bed and turned on the lamp before backing away.

Nick was still sitting upright on the bed with the sheets pooled around his waist. His chest heaved and his gaze darted around the room. 

It was clear to Kelly that Nick had no idea where he was or what was going on. Kelly took a deep, steadying breath in an attempt to calm his own racing pulse. He raised his hands slowly and kept his fingers splayed so Nick could see that he wasn’t armed.

“Nick, you’re okay,” Kelly said in a soothing voice.

Nick’s neck twisted quickly before he pinned Kelly down with a distrust-filled stare. Nick’s left hand slowly moved to pat at his thigh, the place where he carried his combat knife whenever they’d been deployed. 

“It’s me, Doc,” Kelly explained calmly. “We’re in Boston, on your boat. Do you remember?”

Nick’s eyes darted away briefly, looking for an exit. Kelly’s heart clenched. This was far from the first time he’d talked Nick or one of their Recon buddies back into reality after a nightmare that woke them up screaming. But this was the first time he’d done it with Nick after they’d fallen in love. It killed him to see Nick this disoriented and terrified in the bed they’d shared.

He watched as Nick’s breathing calmed down. His eyes still didn’t show any signs of recognition but the terror was fading from them with each trudging moment.

Kelly took a slow step forward. Nick’s eyes flashed as his gaze shifted. Kelly froze and swallowed hard. He didn’t want to move closer too soon and risk looking like a threat to Nick while the man was still fighting off whatever nightmare he was currently pulling himself out of. 

“Kels?” Nick asked in a quiet, hoarse voice.

He wasn’t looking at Kelly’s face, instead his eyes were fixed on the fading pink scar on Kelly’s chest. 

“Yeah, Nicko, it’s me.” Kelly walked closer.

Nick’s eyes turned glassy. Once Kelly was within reach, Nick reached out and pulled him onto the bed. Kelly ended up standing on his knees, straddling Nick’s lap, with Nick’s arms wrapped around his waist and Nick’s forehead pressed against his chest.

Kelly ran his fingers through Nick’s curls. The motion was soothing.

Nick pressed a kiss against the scar on Kelly’s chest. Kelly’s stomach fluttered at the gesture. Nick had done the same thing in their Baltimore hotel room before they’d slept together—really slept together—for the first time.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Kelly asked hesitantly. “The nightmare, I mean.”

Nick let out a broken little laugh. He turned his head so he could meet Kelly’s eyes. 

“I keep dreaming about New Orleans.” He looked away and drug his teeth along his bottom lip. “I keep dreaming that you died there, Kels. It’s the same fucking dream over and over. There’s always so much blood and everyone else disappears and I can’t get you to stop bleeding. I just keep begging you to hold on, to wait for help, and you die on me every fucking time.”

Nick’s voice was raw and tears spilled from his startling green eyes as he finished speaking.

Kelly shifted until he was sitting in Nick’s lap with his legs wrapped around Nick’s waist. He held Nick’s face in his hands and brushed away Nick’s tears with his thumbs.

“Babe, I’m right here.”

Nick leaned forward and captured his mouth in a kiss. The kiss wasn’t brutal or filled with heat. Instead it was slow and tinged with a bit of desperation. The sort of desperation borne from being thankful that the person you loved was not only alive but there in your arms. 

Their lips dragged against each other. Their tongues and teeth did battle between moans and whispered words of assurance and love.

The ache that had settled into Kelly’s chest when he’d kissed Nick goodbye for the last time in Baltimore after their two days of hotel room sex and murmured promises, finally faded away. Nick had returned from his deployment. He’d come back uninjured—whole—and the first thing he’d done when they’d seen each other in the airport was sweep Kelly into his arms.

Finally, Kelly pulled his mouth away and rested his forehead against Nick’s brow. 

“I’d rather trace a million new freckles on your skin, than a single new scar,” Kelly’s voice broke.

Nick kissed him gently and smiled. “I love you too, Kels.”


End file.
